Originally posted by sentinel2107
The Lunar Laser Ranging Instrument (LLRI), which is supposed to determine the surface topography, can catch things out, right (assuming the images are
released)?

Here's something that'll straighten the knots about how the LLRI developed by ISRO works...

Courtesy: ISRO

Scientific Objective:

To provide ranging data for determining the height difference between the spacecraft and the lunar surface.

Payload Configuration Details:

LLRI works on the time-Of-Flight (TOF) principle. In this method, a coherent pulse of light from a high power laser is directed towards the target
whose range is to be measured. A fraction of the light is scattered back in the direction of the laser source where an optical receiver collects it
and focuses it on to a photoelectric detector. By accurately measuring the roundtrip travel time of the laser pulse, highly accurate range/spot
elevation measurements can be made.

LLRI consists of a 10 mJ Nd:YAG laser with 1064 nm wave source operating at 10 Hz pulse repetition mode. The reflected laser pulse from the lunar
surface is collected by a 200 mm Ritchey-Chrétien Optical receiver and focused on to a Silicon Avalanche Photodetector. The output of the detector is
amplified and threshold detected for generating range information to an accuracy

The fourth orbit raising manoeuvre of Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft was carried out today (October 29, 2008) morning at 07:38 am IST. During
this manoeuvre, the spacecraft’s 440 Newton liquid engine was fired for about three minutes. With this, Chandrayaan-1 entered into a more elliptical
orbit whose apogee (farthest point to Earth) lies at 267,000 km (two lakh sixty seven thousand km) while the perigee (nearest point to Earth)
lies at 465 km. Thus, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft’s present orbit extends more than half the way to moon. In this orbit, the spacecraft takes about six
days to go round the Earth once.

The health of the spacecraft is being continuously monitored from the Spacecraft Control Centre at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network
(ISTRAC) in Bangalore with support from Indian Deep Space Network antennas at Byalalu. All systems onboard the spacecraft are performing normally. One
more orbit raising manoeuvre is scheduled to send the spacecraft to the vicinity of the moon at a distance of about 384,000 km from the Earth.

Originally posted by hotbakedtater
Here is what I noticed in the articles: The US, NASA, has donated two payloads to look for water and minerals, two quite exploitable
resources.

NASA and ESA have not "donated" their payloads. The ISRO made an announcement of OPPORTUNITY, sort of competition. Since countries are not so very
generous and thus opportunities to send instruments for free of cost to space, let alone to moon, are rare, as many as 30 instruments from different
countries have participated in this competition.

Among 30, six were hand picked by ISRO. They are from US, UK, Germany, Sweden and Bulgaria (Otherwise who in the world, including ESA, will give
Bulgarians a chance of free ride).

The 5 instruments of ISRO alone could make Chandrayaan-1 a worthy lunar mission. Among 6, two (from Sweden and UK) are collaborative works with India,
done under the direct supervision of ISRO. Remainders are tailored by ISRO to cram them into that small probe.

It is sad that neither the "free ride" nor the "ISRO's (Indian) generosity" ever got mentioned in western media. Don't know, who in the hell
will give free ride to moon, that too in their very first lunar mission. That is a very good indication of ISRO's maturity, confidence and open
mindedness.

But, instead India got bashed in western media exploiting her "waiting mouths to be fed" weakness (BeBeC, British Broadcasting Comedy: Have your
say: Should India take part in space race?). Is there any chance that these jealousy struck pompous ignoramuses, thinking themselves as
representatives of humanity

, will ever learn that their media is going drag them into an abyss of ignorance.

(No, no, I am not talking about you hotbakedtater, the others who posted feed-the-people-first and missionary-thing grandiloquences.)

Originally posted by CosmicScorpion
For the conspiracy part (hey, after all it is ATS), it is so very mysterious, why ISRO/India invited, in the first place, other countries to
participate in this prestigious project?

Hmmm...! Let me hazard a guess -- Is it so that in the (un)likely event of the spacecraft mysteriously failing/dying/disappearing/whatever, there will
be more of an international furore in search for the truth?

Or, maybe it is more mundane. It is a marketing strategy for ISRO's international commercial wing, Antrix, to relay to the world on success of the
mission the message - Hey, you can outsource even your space activities to us now.

Originally posted by CosmicScorpion
For the conspiracy part (hey, after all it is ATS), it is so very mysterious, why ISRO/India invited, in the first place, other countries to
participate in this prestigious project?

I'm still waiting for the Lunar impacter. Any idea if they will get any images of that ?

Also just reading up of the Trans Lunar Injection and Hohmann transfers, its strikes me that ISRO didnt choose to a faster Hohmann transfer ? Is the
Lunar probe really small that it doesnt have enough fuel for such a long burn or were they trying to play it safe ??

I also read about ISRO's plans to have a man in space by 2015, doesnt that seem like a rather optimistic goal when there are still no mature heavy
lift launch vehicles at their disposal ?

However, I like their idea of having a robotic rover on the moon. If they can build a massive enough rover they can seriously explore the moon like
never before and much more safely than sending a man on the moon. It would also be cheaper and give them a real and viable technological leg up to
join the West in its inter-planetary explorations.

Originally posted by IAF101
Also just reading up of the Trans Lunar Injection and Hohmann transfers, its strikes me that ISRO didnt choose to a faster Hohmann transfer ? Is the
Lunar probe really small that it doesnt have enough fuel for such a long burn or were they trying to play it safe ??

From what I have gathered, they are doing this "loop-the-loop" for fine-tuning the calibration of their tracking systems (focussed on the spacecraft
under the gravitational tugs of the Earth, the Moon and the Sun), particularly the Deep Space Network (DSN) system that they have set up -
incidentally the DSN has the capability to be used even for Mars mission if it ever comes up later.

Here is something to chew on: Article:The New York Times, October 29, 2008 -- "Fly Me to the Deity" by TUNKU VARADARAJAN

AN unmanned spacecraft from India — that most worldly and yet otherworldly of nations — is on its way to the moon. For the first time since
man and his rockets began trespassing on outer space, a vessel has gone up from a country whose people actually regard the moon as a god.

The Chandrayaan (or “moon craft”) is the closest India has got to the moon since the epic Hindu sage, Narada, tried to reach it on a ladder of
considerable (but insufficient) length — as my grandmother’s bedtime version of events would have it. So think of this as a modern Indian
pilgrimage to the moon.

As it happens, a week before the launching, millions of Hindu women embarked on a customary daylong fast, broken at night on the first sighting of the
moon’s reflection in a bowl of oil. (This fast is done to ensure a husband’s welfare.) But reverence for the moon is not confined to traditional
Indian housewives: The Web site of the Indian Space Research Organization — the body that launched the Chandrayaan — includes a verse from the Rig
Veda, a sacred Hindu text that dates back some 4,000 years: “O Moon! We should be able to know you through our intellect,/ You enlighten us through
the right path.”

One is tempted, in all this, to dwell on the seeming contradiction between religion and science, between reason and superstition. And yet, anyone
who has been to India will have noted also its “modernity of tradition.” The phrase, borrowed from the political scientists Lloyd and Susanne
Rudolph, might explain the ability of devout Hindus — many of them, no doubt, rocket scientists — to see no disharmony between ancient Vedic
beliefs and contemporary scientific practice.

The Hindu astrological system is predicated on lunar movements: so the moon is a big deal in astrology-obsessed India. That said, the genius of
modern Hinduism lies in its comfort with, and imperviousness to, science. A friend tells me of an episode from his childhood in Varanasi, the
sacred Hindu city. Days after Apollo 11 landed on the moon, a model of the lunar module was placed in a courtyard of the most venerable temple in
the city. The Hindu faithful were hailing man-on-the-moon; there was no suggestion that the Americans had committed sacrilege. (Here, I might add
— with a caveat against exaggeration — that science sometimes struggles to co-exist with faith in the United States in ways that would disconcert
many Indians.)

Of course, the Chandrayaan is also a grand political gesture — space exploration in the service of national pride. This kind of excursion may
provoke yawns at NASA, but judging from round-the-clock local coverage it has received, the mission has clearly inflamed the imagination and ambition
of Indians. Yes, even moon-worshipping ones.

Tunku Varadarajan, a professor of business at New York University and a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, is the opinion editor at
Forbes.com.

Originally posted by sentinel2107 particularly the Deep Space Network (DSN) system that they have set up - incidentally the DSN has the
capability to be used even for Mars mission if it ever comes up later.

Originally posted by zorgon
So when did India set up a Deep Space network?

It is a ground based tracking satellite/spacecraft system comprising --

1. An indigenously built 32-metre deep space network (DSN) antenna, which ISRO has installed at the hamlet of Byalalu, 32km from Bangalore. Capable of
tracking probes or satellites up to 400,000km from the Earth.

2. A co-located 18-metre German-built antenna. Capable of tracking probes or satellites up to 100,000km from the Earth.

3. A 11-m antenna under construction. Will be operational in 2009.

And let me add that the cost of setting up of the DSN is included in the project cost of Chandrayaan.

With Chandrayaan-1 well on its way to moon without any glitch, Indian Space Research Organisation has now initiated a dialogue with its Russian
counterpart of worksharing of Chandrayaan-2 which features a lander and a rover.

"Conceptual studies are in place. Overall configuration is finalised but the scientific experiments are yet to be finalised. It may take six months
(for finalisation)", ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair told PTI in Bangalore.

"The lander will be from Russia. The Russian space agency is cooperating with us. The rover will be a joint development between Russia and India.
Many of the scientific instruments (payloads on board Chandrayaan-2) will be from India", Nair, also Secretary in the Department of Space, said.

Unlike the Chandrayaan-1 which will orbit the moon at an altitude of 100 km mapping topography and the mineralogical content of the lunar soil, the
Chandrayaan-2 mission involves a lunar orbiting spacecraft and a lander and a rover on the moon's surface.

Project Director of Chandrayaan-1 Mayilsami Annadurai said the Government has approved a Rs 425 crore budget for the Chandrayaan-2 venture, with seed
money of Rs 50 crore already in place.

Even for building the lander, India can contribute its expertise, Annadurai said, adding, work-sharing discussions on the mission (who will do what)
are in progress with the Russian space agency.

Originally posted by sentinel2107
...there will be more of an international furore in search for the truth?

...can outsource even your space activities to us now.

I thought you're from the same planet like me. But Sir, on this planet whenever people try to search for truth, buildings will be erased off the
maps, Jacksons will become white, Angelinas mate with Brads and give birth to kids, Georgians attack Russians on the eve of Olympic games and Russians
get blamed for it... the list is quite long.

Outsourcing... hmm... let me see... how to insult those scientists. Rocket coolies? Just the way the west came up with Cyber/SW coolies for "SW
engineers".

Originally posted by CosmicScorpion
I thought you're from the same planet like me. But Sir, on this planet whenever people try to search for truth, buildings will be erased off the
maps, Jacksons will become white, Angelinas mate with Brads and give birth to kids, Georgians attack Russians on the eve of Olympic games and Russians
get blamed for it... the list is quite long.

Well expostulated.

Of course, you are much further down the rabbit hole, whereas i am just peering in, picking up courage.

Outsourcing... hmm... let me see... how to insult those scientists. Rocket coolies? Just the way the west came up with Cyber/SW coolies for
"SW engineers".

Originally posted by IAF101
I'm still waiting for the Lunar impacter. Any idea if they will get any images of that ?

Moon Impact Probe
Courtesy: ISRO

The MIP (29-kg) will carry three instruments:

> High resolution mass spectrometer to measure the components of the lunar atmosphere during free fall to the lunar surface.

> Video Imaging system to acquire pictures of the Moon's surface during the descent.

> C-Band Radar Altimeter to measure the altitude of the probe contineously.

Once the MIP starts its decent to the lunar surface, the Video Imaging system will be activated and images captured by it will be beamed to ISRO.

Also just reading up of the Trans Lunar Injection and Hohmann transfers, its strikes me that ISRO didnt choose to a faster Hohmann transfer ?
Is the Lunar probe really small that it doesnt have enough fuel for such a long burn or were they trying to play it safe ??

Right! Playing safe! They didn't choose the faster option due to the risk of overshooting the Moon's orbit. And fuel is not the issue here.

I also read about ISRO's plans to have a man in space by 2015, doesnt that seem like a rather optimistic goal when there are still no mature
heavy lift launch vehicles at their disposal ?

Right again!

A Rover (with Russian collaboration) by 2012, man in space by 2015, and man on the Moon by 2020! I wonder why this tearing hurry??
Smells fishy, what?

However, I like their idea of having a robotic rover on the moon. If they can build a massive enough rover they can seriously explore the moon
like never before and much more safely than sending a man on the moon. It would also be cheaper and give them a real and viable technological leg up
to join the West in its inter-planetary explorations.

This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.